InFocus Play Big IN76 DLP Projector

Reviews: Multimedia

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Mark Korff
Kurtis
InFocus
Nov. 6, 2006

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First Impressions

If you're used to the grey boxy look of older InFocus projectors, you'll be quite surprised by the glossy black curves that grace the IN76 because the design team definitely went out of their way to make this one sexy looking projector. The looks aren't the only distinguishing characteristic of this projector, however. Unlike most projectors, the IN76 sports a swivel base that replaces the typical feet that screw in/out in order to help adjust the location of the image. The base works great if you're projecting from a low shelf or tabletop, but when I tried placing the IN76 upright on a custom made shelf that hangs less than a foot from the ceiling in my living room, it was impossible to get the image to project low enough with the base attached. Since I don't own a ceiling mount, I ended up removing the base, and then after flipping the IN76 upside down, I gently rested it on a few towels which were placed on the shelf. When placed upside down in this manner the projector had no problem displaying an acceptable image.

On the back of the IN76 you'll find a good selection of input options which include: one HDMI (HDCP), one M1-DA/DVI (HDCP), one 3-RCA component port, one S-video port; one composite video jack, one RS-232 control, and one 12V trigger. It's reassuring to see that the IN76 is relatively future proof with both of its digital inputs being HDCP compliant, so you'll be good to go if you ever want to invest in an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player. As mentioned previously, the IN76 projects at a native resolution of 1280x720, but thanks to the digital inputs, the IN76 also supports 1080p/24/30/50/60 via scaling. Unfortunately, I didn't have any 1080p video sources to test the IN76 with, so for the purposes of this review I was limited to 720p HDTV via Comcast Digital Cable, and 720p videos and games played on my Xbox 360.

On the top of the IN76 you'll find the zoom and focus controls, as well as a few other things like the on/off switch, but the zoom and focus controls are the only ones that aren't also available on the included remote. Although you can adjust the zoom, focus, and keystone, the IN76 does not provide any physical lens shift, so if your setup requires any geometry corrections, you'll have to resort to the digital keystone correction which will have the negative side effect of reducing the resolution and brightness the more you have to adjust it. You'll also miss out on displaying 720p images at their true pixel-for-pixel native resolution since that is only possible if you don't make any keystone corrections at all.

Once I had the image geometry where I wanted it, I popped in a video calibration DVD and began the process of adjusting the brightness, contrast, color, and sharpness settings to get the best picture possible. Actually, I should say I began the process of not adjusting those settings because InFocus did a great job of picking all the right values for the IN76 so its image is nearly perfect right out of the box. I literally only changed the brightness and contrast settings by two ticks each, on a scale of 0-100, and after playing around with the sharpness and color settings for a few seconds, it was clear that their default values were actually perfect. I give huge props to InFocus for their excellent pre-calibration because even if you're a consumer with no idea of how to setup the IN76 on your own, you'll still be getting just about the best picture possible without touching any of these settings.

After spending some time getting the IN76 hooked up to the rest of my home theater system, adjusting the image size and geometry to fit my screen, and calibrating the contrast, brightness, and color settings, I was more than ready to test it out with some movies, games, and HDTV...

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Impressions
Page 3: Testing
Page 4: Conclusion

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